


Dean Figures It Out

by SherlockWolf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Agender Castiel (Supernatural), Agender Character, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Bisexuality, Gen, Genderfluid Castiel (Supernatural), Genderfluid Character, M/M, POV Dean Winchester, dean is bi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 02:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12878184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockWolf/pseuds/SherlockWolf
Summary: Dean doesn’t really remember when he figured it out. High school, maybe senior year. After the boys home for sure.Yeah, Dean doesn’t know exactly how, when, where, or why. All he knows for certain is that, not unlike Bert and Ernie, he has a thing for men just like he has a thing for women.One day he cracked.





	Dean Figures It Out

    Dean doesn’t really remember when he figured it out. High school, maybe senior year. After the boys home for sure.

    There was a cute Latino boy in his World History class senior year, who smiled at him whenever he could show up to class. Dean liked his hair, his eyes, his smile, the way his lips felt that one night behind the bleachers…

    He never saw that kid again. Not for any related reason, John just moved them to the next state. Dean was thankful his dad never found out, though. And he was thankful his dad never knew about the five others after that.

    Then there were the years after high school when Sam was still finishing and John started taking Dean with him on hunts. They rarely took Sammy, which Dean was thankful for. Sam had wanted to go to college, and though they didn’t tell John until Sam was actually leaving, Dean had done his best to keep his little brother in school.

    Those years, Dean began to experiment. Sure, he’d kissed a handful of girls and boys in high school. But he was nineteen, then in his early twenties and ready to mingle in the adult world. He got curious as most people do, and one-night stands were the only way he could do anything with the life he had. But Dean was never brave enough to pick up any guys. Sure, there was flirting, especially those times he “accidently” went into queer bars with the self-justification that he wanted a night without John finding him and forcing him to hustle pool.

    That was how he met Lisa, one night after a hunt without John. Bar surfing, and wa-la best weekend of his life. Later she would become one of the greatest loves of his life, and just like Cassie he often wondered about her.

    Dean made the mistake of going steady-ish with Cassie. But she had been so wonderful, jubilant, and full of life. He really loved the time he spent with her, and who he was around her. It’d been irresistible. Cassie was supportive of his struggles with his family and home life, at least, she was until he told her the reality of it. And she hadn’t cared that he’d kissed guys. She’d kissed girls, she’d said, so why would she? Sometimes, Dean missed her with a sad, fond kind of ache and wondered what she was up to these days. Hopefully spending her time with someone better than himself.

    Sam found out while he was still in high school. Siblings have a talent of knowing more than they should. In their case, they hardly had time to themselves, so naturally they became incredibly close. As kids and as adults. Dean knew Sam loved books, Sam knew Dean liked cars. Dean knew Sam liked documentaries, Sam knew Dean liked Taylor Swift. So of course Sam knew. Most importantly, Sam didn’t think poorly of Dean for it. In fact, Sam just found it as another way to tease his older brother until he got older and…still used it as a way to tease his older brother.

    It used to bother him. Especially when he was young and John was still around. But then John died. And it was just him and Sam, and often Dean’s only outlet from their wretched lives was booze and sex. Often in that order. It took years and an occasionally-continuing intervention plan via Sam to drag him out of that rut so that he would accept himself and his life. At this point, Dean figures he’s comfortable. After all, he’s been much worse things than bisexual. Take being a demon, for example.

    Yeah, Dean doesn’t know exactly how, when, where, or why. All he knows for certain is that, not unlike Bert and Ernie, he had a thing for men just like he had a thing for women.

    And then Castiel walked into his life.

    At first, Dean hadn’t gotten along with him. Barely even liked him, didn’t trust him, didn’t want him around unless he would be useful.

    Then something changed. In both himself and in Castiel. The angel softened, began to understand humans and their way of life. Anna had a hand in it, of course. She showed Castiel the reality of the angels’ intentions. But Dean likes to think he helped.

    So, they became friends. Began to trust one another on a basic level, and the trust just kept growing. Cas would help Dean and Sam because he wanted to more often than not, and despite his mistakes, he and Sam found it easy to forgive him and welcome him back each time. They’d made tons of mistakes of their own and couldn’t hold Cas’ against him when he was trying to do good just like them.

    Dean wasn’t sure when he fell in love with Heaven’s dorkiest angel in a trench coat.

    He certainly knew that he’d found Cas attractive nearly from the beginning. All the assertive aggression, the self-assured cockiness, the awkward ignorance of human culture, the sudden moments of gentleness, the hair and glowers that looked like he’d just gotten…well. Cas was hot, Dean couldn’t argue even with himself about that.

    But love…

    Maybe he’d started to feel it during all the big stuff they went through.

    When they were plotting against the angels to stop Lucifer and Michael from starting the apocalypse. The way he snuck information to them, helped them, rebelled against Heaven for them. For Dean.

    When he found Castiel in the alternate world where Lucifer had won. Where Croatoan had taken over, and Cas was still there, by his future-self’s side, helping him, trusting him. Even though the damage it did to him was extreme, and his future-self didn’t even bat an eye, Cas was by Dean’s side, where he believed he belonged.

    When Cas, after his misguided pursuit for good, was so beyond broken by what he’d done that Dean wasn’t sure if he could bring him back from it. Sure, it had been frustrating, but Dean had been determined to work through the barriers Cas’ mind had built to protect him to bring Cas back to his former glory.

    When they were in Purgatory and relied on one another for everything. Dean knows he would’ve gone insane if Cas hadn’t been there. He would’ve lost himself in the violence, much the same way he did when he became a demon, if Cas hadn’t given him purpose.

    When Cas was human, soft and gentle, but with an undying fire inside. It’d had been impressive to see that despite losing everything, Cas was still himself, still ready to help in any way he could. And then Cas died. As a human. Unlike before, he couldn’t come back. For a few fleeting minutes, Dean had lived in a world without Castiel. If Gadreel hadn’t been there, he’d still be living in that Cas-less world.

    When Dean was rescued from being a demon. In fact, Dean is sure that that was what sealed the deal, so to speak. His human self once again, Dean recognized emotions he’d lacked as a demon. And one of those was an incredibly overwhelming feeling of love. Not the friend-kind or the family-kind. The romantic-kind, the _I love you_ kind, the kind that consumed you when it was gone.

    Or maybe it was the small stuff, like when Charlie teased him about _dreamy Castiel_ , or when Cas brought back his mixtape not understanding that Dean had made it for him, or maybe when Cas squinted, or didn’t understand a human concept, or smiled that half-smile, or pressed Dean against a wall to put him in his place, or asked for a guinea pig, or watched porn in a room full of dudes, or accepted that Dean had a cowboy fetish and rolled with it, or how he trusted and loved so openly and without regret…

    Dean could list the little things he loved about Castiel forever.

    The thing about Cas, though, was that he wasn’t _actually_ a dude. The way Cas had explained it to him, the two of them alone in Bobby’s living room late one night post-apocalypse, was that angels were just concentrated energy. They didn’t really have bodies of any kind and thus gender was irrelevant in relation to themselves. Though, Cas had told him, they understood that it mattered to humans and thus used different vessels to achieve different means. Cas had actually referenced Anna as an example, and how she preferred female vessels because of how humans viewed them.

    Then, Cas had told Dean that he himself had no preference. That he’d had about as many female vessels as male ones and had never developed a particular likening to either. Sometimes having a physical form had even annoyed Cas, and he’d spend a thousand or so years in Heaven before setting foot on Earth again.

    It reminded Dean of how insignificant yet significant he was to the angel, when Cas said things like that.

    They’d talked about sexuality once. Again, at night alone, this time in the bunker. Cas had actually been the one to bring it up. He’d been asking Dean about Charlie, since he’d just met her. In fact, she’d been asleep in the bunker that very night.

    Then Cas had turned the conversation to Dean. He’d asked Dean if he’d ever kissed men before, and Dean had answered honestly knowing he could trust Cas with the information. Cas’ curiosity only went up from there, and he asked Dean not only about the men he’d been with but about all of the ones Dean had ever had crushes on, from people he actually knew to celebrities, characters, or historical figures—most of which were cowboys, of course.

    They even talked a little about Cas’ sexuality, and Dean wasn’t surprised to find that Cas enjoy sex but didn’t have a preference for who he had it with, since gender was irrelevant to him to begin with. Not once, though had the conversation ever approached Dean’s feelings for Cas. Or Cas’ for Dean.

    Dean knew Cas felt the same. How could he not? Cas behaved so differently around him than he did around anyone else. And Dean had trained himself from an early age to pick up on the signs of attraction. Given, those were human behaviours he’d learned, but Cas emulated humans so much that he’d picked up so many of their behaviours. And when Cas actually was human? Poor guy couldn’t have been more obvious about it. Not only had he become friends with angel, he’d managed to seduce the guy. Not that he himself was any better off. Sometimes wondering how they got into this situation sent Dean’s head for a spin.

    Often, especially these days with Cas back from the dead—for good, as far as Dean was concerned—, it took all of Dean’s willpower not to push the angel up against the nearest wall and kiss all of their pain away. To love and be loved as fully as with Cas…Dean had never once imagined that he would experience such a thing. Cas was as precious to Dean as Sam and Baby. Without the three of them Dean would be lost.

    One day he cracked.

    After the mess with Lucifer, Jack, and Michael was over, and they were safe once again, world saved, all that jazz. Jack was watching a Disney movie, Sam sitting at the table reading, and Cas sitting next to Jack on the couch, similarly watching the movie. Dean had just come in from the kitchen and when he caught sight of his family relaxed and safe, he was overcome by it. Cas had looked up as soon as he walked in and smiled so slightly, yet so comfortingly, so _knowingly,_ that Dean had felt weak in the knees. Dean had leaned against the pillar next to him for support, and Cas had come right to him, hands reaching for Dean to help, and Dean had just taken Cas’ wrists and swept him into a hug.

    But it wasn’t Dean who cracked.

    It was Cas.

    When he pulled back from the hug, Cas had tears in his eyes, his bottom lip trembled, and he looked so…vulnerable. Dean’s heart ached for him, his own body shivered with overload.

    Dean had tried to speak, to say something, anything, about how much he loved and needed Cas and was so happy to have him back. But before he could Cas had placed a hand on the back of Dean’s neck and leaned in and kissed him, hard and soft and needy and loving and…it was everything.

    The kiss itself hadn’t lasted long. But they’d stood there holding one another, just being alive together, until Jack’s movie ended and they’d rejoined the rest of their family to start up another one.

    Sam had caught Dean’s eye and winked. Brothers had to tease, even if they knew how good of a thing had just happened.

    Yeah, Dean had known he was bisexual for a long, long time.

    But not once had he imagined that it would lead him to Castiel.

 

   

   


End file.
